La Primavera
by Bobcat Moran
Summary: Being a teenage girl isn't easy. Being a teenage girl who time travels isn't any easier. A slice of life with Alba and Henry.


**Author's Notes: **This was written for Yuletide 2007, as a present for Care.

**Disclaimer:** _The Time Traveler's Wife_ and all related characters and concepts are not mine. Obviously.

-o-o-o-

_Sunday, November 12, 2017 (Alba is 16)_

**ALBA:** I'm backstage at Orchestra Hall, running through on my violin for what feels like the umpteenth time. C, G, D, E, B . . . I probably shouldn't be this nervous. Common sense would say that the part I should've been most nervous about was auditioning for the Chicago Youth Symphony's Symphonic Orchestra, not playing with them. And the audition's done, and I'm here, and we're going to be performing Vivaldi and Ravel and Tchaikovsky and Bernstein in less than half an hour, and it's not like I'm the one that's got the big solos in "The Four Seasons" -- that would be Laura, who is very smug about it. Gramps says not to mind it, that some firsts are like that. Makes me glad to be a second.

But I'm still stressing out and nervous, mostly because the concert hall will be packed full of people and I really, really need to stay in Now for at least the next hour, because traveling in the middle of a concert would be ten different types of humiliation and embarrassment, especially since, unlike school concerts, these are not parents of classmates who know about CDP. And then I start to worry about traveling in the middle of the concert, and that makes me _more_ stressed out, which makes me even more likely to vanish, which makes me nervous... It's a vicious circle, let me tell you.

So that's why I'm running through the scales, up through the sharps, down through the flats and back, because it's something nice and routine to focus on; something I've been able to do since before I graduated to a full-size violin. I can barely even hear myself in here. There's a group of brass players who have apparently decided to start a "who can make the most annoying sound with their mouthpiece" contest, and my friend Mashawna is working on her continuing project to figure out how to play her school's fight song on her cello. She finally manages to get through it correctly when everything seems to feel a bit disconnected, like my reception on reality has suddenly deteriorated, giving things strange auras. I whirl around, tap Mashawna on the shoulder, frantically whisper, "I have to go," and clatter out of the room in my new patent leather heels, barely making it to a restroom before I'm gone.

_Sunday, April 21, 1996 (Henry is 43, Alba is 16)_

**HENRY:** I'm sitting at a picnic table in Packard Park, looking out at the lake, somewhere in time. It's spring, with the trees just starting to unfurl their pale green leaves. I've never been to this part of South Haven before, and it's rather nice here. It would probably be even nicer in the summer, but I won't quibble with my current situation too much. After all, I'm safe and I'm relatively warm, thanks to the rather itchy wool sweater and equally itchy wool socks that I liberated from their retail prison, i.e. a store filled with "Celtic" knickknacks and tchkotkes. I wish they sold shoes as well.

I haven't seen many other people here, just an elderly man taking his dog for a walk and a couple of teenagers who tossed a frisbee around for awhile. There is a figure I can see that's been making its way down the beach. Probably a young woman, although it's hard to tell since the clothes they're wearing seem about three sizes too big. She (he?) looks in my direction. I can see her head tilting, as if she's trying to figure out what to make of me, some random oddball who's decided to come to the park wearing socks but no shoes. She starts to walk in my direction slowly, hands stuffed in her voluminous pockets, trying to appear nonchalant. As she gets close enough for me to make out her face, I realize that she looks extremely familiar, just as she suddenly exclaims, "Daddy!" and picks up the pace to a run. It's Alba, practically full-grown.

I stand up to greet her, and she practically tackles me in a tight hug that elicits an "Oof" from me. She quickly launches into a rapid monologue about how she's_so glad to see me_ and _it's been forever_ and _omigod I never expected._ "Whoa, whoa, slow down there," I tell her.

"Sorry," she says, stepping back and bouncing a little on her toes. "It's just that it's been almost two years since I last saw you."

I look her over. She's almost my height, and I can see the hint of curves underneath her voluminous clothing. "When did you come from?" I ask.

"November, 2017."

I do the math in my head. That would make her . . . sixteen. "You've grown up into a fine young woman," I tell her. Then, because I can't resist asking, "Any boyfriends?" She makes a face. "Or girlfriends?" I add, quickly.

"Nooo, no one yet." She pauses, fiddling with the tails of the shirt she's wearing. "But that's something that I kinda wanted to ask you about."

"Oh?"

"Well, I mean, you're the only one who I can really ask this about, since you're the only one who knows what it's like."

"Alba, I hardly think that I'm the first person to--"

"I mean, I've been thinking, I'm going to be eighteen in a couple years, right? And I've been talking with Dr. Kendrick about gene therapy. And he thinks that he's probably It figured out how to stop the time traveling. Figured out on the mice, anyway, not on me, obviously. And I've been thinking that maybe I'll give it a try. Because I've had a couple of close calls this past year, and I know what happened to you; Mom won't talk to me about it, but I've pieced together enough." I try to get in a word edgewise, but she presses on. "But it's also so _interesting_, you know? And I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be boring just living one day after another, all in a neat linear row off to forever."

"And you're wondering what I would do."

"Yeah." She looks up at me hopefully. This isn't something for which I have any easy answers.

I hesitate, then say, "If it were me, as I am, right now, I would take it. But that's because I want very badly to be able to stop time traveling. I want to be there for Clare, want to be able to see you grow up. I want you to not have to worry about me when I'm gone and I want to be able to live a relatively normal life where I don't have to worry about having to hide or how to find clothes because it's cold, rainy, and I left my pants in last week. I don't know if you feel as strongly about your reasons or if they're even the same ones. You'll have to weigh those against any hypothetical 'boring' future."

"Um, yeah, about that . . ." she says. "There is a different reason, too, for wanting to not do it. So, um, you know how you and Mom met? Well, I was wondering, what if I do the gene therapy and stay in the present, but then I never meet my soul mate?"

Ignoring the idea of a "soul mate," which I simultaneously understand and find ridiculous, I tell her, "Your mom and I could have met even if I never time traveled. After all, the day she walked into the Newberry and I met her for the first time had nothing to do with time traveling."

"But would it have ended the same way?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I don't like to play around with could haves' and might haves.'" This is quickly veering into territory where I'm not confident I can deliver good advice. Coward that I am, I change the subject. "So, what are you up to these days?" I ask.

"Well," she says, "I'm_supposed_ to be at Orchestra Hall, playing Vivaldi."

"Vivaldi?" I ask. "Which piece?"

"'The Four Seasons.' It's kinda cliché, I know, but we're playing the whole thing, not just the Allegro from Spring,' you know, the da-dah-da-dah dada da' part," she says, singing the first phrase. "And we're doing Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Bernstein, too." Her expression turns rueful. "It was going to be my first concert with the Symphonic Orchestra."

I'm impressed. The Chicago Youth Symphony is difficult to get into. I tell her so, and she shrugs. "I only made second violin. It's not like I'm concertmaster or anything." She fiddles with her hair, twirling a curly lock around her finger over and over. "So, when are you coming from?"

"I am coming from August of 2006. I took you shopping for your school supplies for kindergarten yesterday and spent much of the time debating with you the merits of crayons versus markers. I met you when you were eight a few months ago. You were going to be in a play at school; it had some sort of horrible pun about animals in the title."

Alba thinks for a moment, and then groans, "Oh My Deer."

"I'm sorry?" I venture, confused.

"No, Oh My Deer.' That was the title. God, how did Mom ever sit through that. It must have been awful. A herd of second-graders, reciting stilted lines and frolicking in deer costumes."

"I'm sure it was lovely," I reassure her. "You would have made a very cute deer."

"Thanks." Alba rolls her eyes.

"So what else is going on?" I ask. "Other than you missing out on your grand symphonic debut. What are you learning in school?"

"I'm reading _Huck Finn_ in English, and we're dissecting frogs on Monday."

"Ah, the classic high school curricula," I say dramatically. "Glad to see they haven't changed much since I was there."

"Bet you didn't do a live lab with them first," she says.

"Oh, how did that go?"

"It went okay, but I don't think my lab partner and I should've named ours. I'm going to feel bad cutting poor Freddie open now."

Ouch. "Well, I'm sure that Freddie understands that he's giving up his froggy life for a good cause, instructing you in amphibian anatomy, which I'm sure will be of great use to you later in life as you further your studies of herpetology."

"Isn't herpetology just reptiles?"

"Really? I thought it was reptiles and amphibians."

She shakes her head vehemently, then blinks a couple times, looking disconcerted. A quiet, "Oh, no, I--" gets past her lips before she vanishes, leaving behind a pile of clothing.


End file.
